


Memory Sink

by Alliance (Xazz)



Series: Cypress Hall [29]
Category: Flight Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 11:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14976569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Alliance





	Memory Sink

As [Reza](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=332919&tab=dragon&did=36309765) was getting ready for bed there was a knock on the door. Who? He groaned a little. He had had a long day and was so tired, he just wanted to sleep. Half dressed he trudged over to the door and opened it a little. He wasn’t entirely happy with who was on the other side. It was [Rahila](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&tab=dragon&id=332919&did=38208293), her tangle of curls around her shoulders, looking a whole lot more vulnerable than he knew she was in a nightgown and nothing else. 

“What do you want?” he asked, wary.

She put her hand on the door so he couldn’t close it. She knew him too well. He wouldn’t just close the door on her hand and he resented her for it. “I want to sleep with you,” she said.

He leaned back a little. “Uh… elaborate.” He’d specifically told himself he wasn’t going to have sex with Rahila anymore. It wasn’t great for his peace of mind.

“Like sleep in the bed next to you,” she rolled her red eyes at him.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea either,” he said.

She pushed the door open and he stumbled back a step. He hated when she did that. Just did whatever she wanted. She grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him, her mouth warm against his. She was a good kisser but he really didn’t want to. He didn’t stop her either and kissed her back. “I’ll be gentle with you,” she told him like a secret, still holding his face.

“That isn’t very inspiring,” Reza said awkwardly.

“You need to see something.”

That really made Reza nervous. He tried not to go into the Deeprealm. He always got lost and always needed Spayar to come call him home. Or Rahila was with him and he wouldn’t remember half of what he saw. He always felt so disoriented around Rahila. She was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen but he was terrified of her.

“Alright,” he said eventually as she stroked his cheeks gently with her thumbs. He hated when she was soft with him. It felt so manipulative and he fell for it every time. He pulled out of her grasp and closed the door. When he turned back around Rahila was shaking out her wings before crawling into his nest. “Stop that,” he said sourly as her nightgown rode up her bronze thigh. She just looked at him but he just gave her an unamused sort of glare.

He went around finishing what he’d been doing. Making sure his things were where he needed them for the morning and what he was doing with Spayar tomorrow. He felt Rahila’s impatient eyes on him the entire time but he wasn’t going to rush. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of going on her time. She’d bothered him. She could wait. Finally, he was finished and he shuttered the light globe casting the room into darkness lit only by the large windows that faced the north sky. The moon was a wane crescent in the ink and cast only a soft golden light on the land, giving just enough light to see by.

Reza got into the nest next to Rahila carefully, nervously. What did he need to see? What was she going to show him? It could be anything. He laid down and got comfortable. Rahila moved closer to him and he was forced to put an arm around her or he’d be very uncomfortable. It annoyed him but at least she wasn’t trying anything funny. She just put her head on his chest and he assumed went to sleep.

It took Reza longer to get to sleep. He stared up at the dark, vaulted, ceiling for a while before he eventually felt his eyes grow heavy and he finally slept.

Mist swirled around his claws. His big claw nervously clicked on the ground. He was always his birth form in the Deeprealm, it revealed the truth in all things. Next to him Rahila was like a mirror to him, the white of her thylacine markings seeming to glow in the dark murk of the Deeprealm. Around was the Tangle but different, twisted, seen through the passage of time and not through distance. There were eight moons in the sky all in different states. Blue, super, wolf, harvest, waxing, waning, new full, red, and half were fully or partially eclipsed leaving their shadows to distort on the ground around them. In the distant sky he could make out dark clouds and shadows. He swallowed.

“It is close,” Rahila said and reached out to grab his claw. “We aren’t going far.”

“Far is relative,” he said.

“It isn't far,” she assured him again and tugged him away from where they'd awoken. The Tangle was at once open and claustrophobic and utterly empty and devoid of anyone and anything. But Rahila knew where she was going. She always knew where she was going. She had a map.

She led him through the dense trees with vines and branches that grabbed at Reza’s wings and horns like grasping hands to a thicket of such tangled brambles and thorns he wasn't even sure how to get through. A light glowed, flickering, from within, barely able to escape the tangle of plant life and thorns. He felt a nervous weight in the pit of his stomach.

“Just through here,” she said and stepped through the thicket. The thorns slashed at her black hide but she didn't seem to feel the pain. Reza knew pain was relative in the Deeprealm but that didn't mean he liked it. He pressed through as well to follow her. The thorns cut his hide but he ignored it and there was no more pain and the thorns merely brushed against his skin.

In the center of the thicket was a nest of broad leaves covered in dew that shined like stars. Resting in the nest was the source of the light from the thicket. A collection of four glowing eggs, each perfect and luminous but now and then flickered in their existence and were dull and grey, released of their contents like someone had cracked them open and sucked out what lay within.

Reza turned on Rahila with a snarl. “What is this?” he demanded, crest raising and extending his wings some to look larger than he was in a threatening display.

“What it looks like,” she said, unimpressed by his reaction. She got close to him, bumping their snouts together, “Our nest.”

Reza was furious. He didn't want any more nests with Rahila. He didn't want to even have sex with her. He honestly sometimes wished she'd just leave him alone and find some other Deeprealm Walker to yank around. “Wake up,” he growled.

Reza’s eyes opened and he sat up. With a wave of his hand he uncovered the lamp and the room was bathed in a soft glow of light. He turned on Rahila who was also awake now. Outside the moon had almost set and the gray light of dawn kissed the horizon. “What did you do?” he demanded and grabbed her by the arms.

“Me?” she asked incredulously. “You are the one who came onto me,” she said haughtily. “It was a surprise since you said you didn't want my body anymore. You still kept me up all night.”

Reza felt the blood drain out of his face. “No. You lie,” he accused her.

“And you've been so nice to me lately. I don't know why you're acting so cold now,” she seemed genuinely confused. She pushed his hands off of her.

“I have not,” Reza tried to recall the last time he'd seen Rahila before tonight. He was shocked to find it was weeks ago.

“I prefer you when you're sweet,” she said and looped her elegant arms around his neck. He was too frozen to push her off of him.

“What did you do?” he asked her.

“Nothing,” she said. “What's the matter, Reza?” The way she said his name jiggled something in his mind but he couldn't quite grasp it.

“I don't remember,” he said. “I don't remember seeing you in a month.”

“That certainly isn't true since you've come to my room late at night at least twice in the past two weeks,” she said, toying with his hair.

Reza felt lost. “Get off,” he pushed her away and got out of his nest. She watched him. “You're lying.”

“Lying is for those with something to hide. I don't. Not to mention you're a Seer. What could I hide from you that you wouldn't See?” Reza was getting dressed with trembling hands. Rahila got out of the nest and walked over to him. She grabbed his hands gently in her own. “What's the matter?” she asked him again.

“I lost time,” he said. “I don't… remember. It's all blank. There are blanks in yesterday. Did I… see you yesterday?”

“Yes. At breakfast, and after.”

“I don't remember breakfast,” he said. “What did you do?”

“Why would I do anything?” she asked and squeezed his hands. “It doesn't benefit me to make you forget being nice to me.”

He pulled his hands from hers. “Where is it?”

“Where's what?”

“You know what,” he snapped. He felt like he spinning out of control. He just needed to see.

“Right where I showed you,” she said.

He grabbed her by the upper arm. “Don't fuck with me right now, Rahila,” he snarled, his lips curled back away from his still sharp teeth menacingly. “I'm a Seer who just realized they've lost a lot of time. I'm not in the mood. Take me there, right now.”

She looked so utterly confused by him but not intimidated. “Alright. Can I at least put on some clothes to not go traipsing around in a nightgown?”

“I guess,” he said and released her. She left the room and he yanked on the rest of his clothes and stalked out of his room and didn't bother waiting for her outside. He just went right into her room and stood there, waiting while she finished changing.

“Don't look so angry, Reza. Your face will stick like that,” she said as she passed and gently smoothed her thumb across his furrowed brow. “And you're much too young to look so grumpy,” she grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the room by the hand.

He didn't say anything to her as they went. She led him out of the Conservatory into the gray pre-dawn and away from it, past their farms and carefully manicured fields and pastures to the wild Tangled. The trees were just as difficult to transverse in reality as they were in the Deeprealm and they scratched at Reza’s wings and tangled in his hair and horns.

The thicket was just as large as it had been but not as thick and Rahila had a way to get through. A tunnel cut through it to the other side. She had to crawl through and Reza was a bit too bit and scraped his wings on the way through and he ended up breaking a few branches as he stood up, snapping them with harsh cracks. The thorns and brambles were just barely tall enough for Rahila to stand and Reza had to stoop.

There, in the middle of the thicket, was a nest dug into the dark earth and lined with large leaves and pine needles. Sitting in a cluster in the center were four glowing Light eggs with their translucent shells that were so full of light that it was impossible to tell what was actually inside them and looking directly into them hurt the eyes. He looked over at Rahila and narrowed his eyes at her.

“Don't glare at me, Reza. This is your fault,” she said. “You came onto me.”

“I doubt that. You know I want nothing to do with you,” he snapped.

“And yet that's the truth.”

He scowled further but didn't know what was really true. He couldn't remember. There was just a black point in his memory as dark as his unpatterned hide. He folded his arms but it felt stupid because of how hunched over he was. “How long?” he asked her.

“How long what?”

“Until they hatch.”

“Mmm, soon, any day now, maybe less,” she said.

“So you wait until the last minute to tell me?” he demanded.

“You knew you idiot!” she yelled back. “The others knew too. Everyone saw me with eggs, including you. It isn't my fault you can't remember. I didn't do anything to you. You asked me last week when our nest was going to hatch and I told you I'd tell you when it was close. You were even here when I laid them.”

Reza stared at her. “I don't remember.”

“So I have surmised,” she said bitterly. “That isn't my fault.” Reza took a deep breath. Well. He had to deal with this now. He put his hands up to his lips in annoyance. “You’re such an ass,” she said. He gave her a bit of a glare.

“You tricked me, somehow. I know you did.”

She just looked frustrated, her pretty face twisted in annoyance. “I did not. I did nothing to you.”

“Either way they can’t hatch here. It’s out in the Tangle and there are toridae, psywyrms. I can’t believe you’d just leave them here.”

“I would have Seen if they were in danger,” she said.

“So that’s why they were flickering,” he growled.

She smacked him with her wing and spat noxious acid at the thicket around them. It dissolved everything it touched and Reza did well to duck his head and cover himself with his wings. “You're such a child,” she said. The thicket was mostly destroyed now so they wouldn’t have to crawl out.

“You're the one who came to me,” he reminded her.

“You called me from across the continent,” she snapped right back. They growled at each other in annoyance. “Don't make me,” she said.

“I don't know what that means but I am pretty sure I can't make you do anything with how much you annoy me,” he growled.

“And don't lie to me,” she hissed.

He knew this was going nowhere. They could, literally, spend all day standing here, bickering. It wouldn't be the first time they'd done so either because Rahila had very different ideas about what they should be doing. He didn't apologize or back down, he just looked down at the nest. “We need to take these back to the Conservatory,” he said.

“Fine,” she huffed.

“You left them out in the woods, Rahila-

“I'm a Seer! Nothing was going to happen to them-

“They were flickering in the Deeprealm and-

They both grew very still when they heard a soft crack. Reza looked down at the nest and saw a nearly invisible crack along the face of one of the eggs. He quickly leaned down and picked it and another that was starting to tremble up. Rahila carefully picked up the other two. Reza didn't say anything to her, he just spread his wings and jumped into the sky to fly back across the wild Tangle, over the tamed land, to the Conservatory.

The druids were just starting to wake for the day. “Reza, there you are,” Spayar said when he saw him.

“Sorry, not now,” Reza said, walking past.

“Are those-

“Yes,” Rahila said, coming up behind Reza. He felt Spayar's confusion even as he walked back to his room.

“Over here,” he said once they were inside and put the eggs on his bed. The one with the crack had a bigger crack in it now and the other one had its own hairline fracture. Rahila put the two eggs she'd been carrying down.

“Reza,” she said and he looked at her. He wanted to pull away when she grabbed his hand but didn't. “I know you're confused and lost time, and upset about this,” as she said that the last egg was finally starting to split.

“That's an understatement,” he muttered.

“But I am glad we had another nest,” she leaned over and kissed him. He really didn't want to kiss her back but he did anyway because it felt like the right thing to do. “They're ours,” she said just as one of the eggs finally split right in two and in a soft flash the hatching tumbled out. They looked up at Reza and Rahila with big, pale, yellow eyes and after a few seconds, their mouth pulled back away from their teeth in a dragon’s smile.


End file.
